The ruling only discards and negates the mandate. However, without the mandate, the rest of the bill cannot be funded. Literally, this is the foundation upon which the rest is crafted. Without it, its like a house built with no foundation. It will fall apart.

Ultimately it does need to go before the Supreme Court. The key is how long it will take. Parts of the law are already in force, other parts won't kick in until later - up until 2014. So the longer pieces get put into place, the worse it is for us all.....

Why not just kill the few million that would die without those programs and at least stop the suffering...Hope it's not someone you love...

The programs are the problem.

Ending them as they are currently set up can only HELP. Medicare WILL bankrupt the country. No one wants to take medicaid as it is. Specialists take it only because they have to to get privileges at hospitals—and hospitals cannot turn away emergent cases, period.

Seriously, why is the cost curve the way it is? GOVERNMENT. They force docs to take below cost, but it's fee for service. The incentive—really a REQUIREMENT with medicaid if you want to, you know, not lose money on every patient—is to do more services. Government is not the solution, it's the problem.

This idiotic bill will in fact hurt those you claim I want to kill. Docs cannot afford to see patients below cost. As soon as this passed, my wife's office stopped taking any new medicare patients at all until further notice. They have too since it's unpredictable right now, and once seen, they "own" the patient and must continue care. Her specialty is already underrepresented in the state (fewer than half the number we need) so those patients are well and truly SOL. They have to head to the U and get seen by slaves, erm, residents (the collection rate at the U is 17%, BTW. What a way to run a business, to only collect 17% of what you bill. Waits will be long. They already dumped medicaid, except those they are forced to see through the ER. Docs in town have talked about starting their own hospital that is off the grid, as it were and will not take medicaid. If you live away from the coasts, the problem currently is the lack of providers. Adding more patients they cannot afford to see—should your plumber be forced to charge you below his actual cost (not even counting his labor) since you need plumbing to live? Should the grocery store be forced to sell every product except luxury foods at a loss (you need food to live, after all)?

The US system's problem is not that we don't have enough government, but that we have too much (~46% of all healthcare is already government paid—and everyone with real insurance is paying a huge tax in premiums to subsidize the deadbeats on government care).

People I love will see docs, we can pay, and/or all our friends are docs. The government is screwing it up for you, not me. I'm trying to help everyone else by telling it like it is.

Hey guys look here... if you want me to hold those shovels and do all the digging for you thats good... I'll do that, its not like this information isnt available on every major news source.

The original post was made from my mobile while waiting for a plane to arrive and thus lacks the usual trumpeting fanfare - so here, pick your poison:

MSNBC

FOX

CNN

WASHINGTON POST

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

NEW YORK TIMES

DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Who would ending these programs help again? Certainly not the people who depend on them.

Ending them as they are.

People will never be denied care in emergencies, won't happen. Medicaid needs to exist mostly to cover that cost, not primary care. There are outfits doing primary care for $30 a visit. There is a market that can be filled (the benefit of primary care is overstated, IMO, 90-something % of what GPs see is self-limiting anyway).

As it is, medicare pays more now than anyone paying in could have reasonably expected. The drug beni (stupid Bush) needs to be eliminated 100%. No one receiving it now paid a penny in expecting it. 100% repeal of that. Medicaid is nothing more than charity, we can do to it what we like. We should remember it is CHARITY care. If you have a good year at work, you donate more to charity. If business is rough and you can barely make payroll... you stop giving large donations to charities. If our balance sheet (the USA) is in () then we cannot afford much charity.

Don't say that it won't happen. If you're willing to let a poor person go without normal care it's not that far a stretch to someday prevent emergency care as well for the same reasons.

When I had a minor heart attack a few years ago it cost my insurance company over 70 THOUSAND dollars for a 20 minute stent implant procedure and a two day hospital stay for observation. Since then easily another 3-4 grand for various tests and follow up doctor visits. You're saying tough tuchus to all that if I didn't have insurance? If that's so I don't think i'd want to live in your America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWkl...eature=related :up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-oPd...eature=related

yes, the health care industry can be non-profit.

the problem with that is simple... the government shouldnt be non-profit, the government should be operating within a balanced budget, when you keep piling trillions on trillions on trillions of dollars onto the heaping debt, eventually you revert to being a third world country.

As long as my medication is paid for in full, my surgery is paid for in full, my hospital stays are paid for in full and i get to make private personal decisions about my health care - i dont give a rats anus if the insurance company paying for it all makes a profit. i dont.

the most common reason someone does not have health insurance is because they work a job that does not provide it as a perk.

guess, what? while you are entitled to health care (and have always received it for free in the ER), you are not entitled to health insurance... its a service, that you buy, with your own money.

If a person desires insurance, they need to get the proper education in order to get the job that provides it... OR... they need to go out and purchase some form of insurance suitable to their lifestyle with their own money.

you shop for car insurance that is both affordable and also commensurate with your needs, why don't more people take the time to shop for health insurance the same way?

Im insured, i pay for that luxury with my own money, I have absolutely no intent to help pay for anyone elses insurance, especially when its paid via a forced subsidy through taxation by the federal government or else i have to face legal penalties.

thats ludicrous

Bill Mayer is a partisan idiot. If he told me the sky was blue i'd doubt him.

Non-profit doesn't necessarily mean that they make a loss. Non-profit means exactly that: no profit. Nothing more.

I wouldn't exactly call healthcare insurance a luxury. It saves lives. Everyone should have an equal chance to have medical treatment. If a rich man with an insurance gets some disease, his treatments get paid for and he lives. If a poor man without insurance gets a disease, he can't pay for it and he dies. Fair?

If you were talking about paying for another man's car, or TV, or house or cellphone or whatever, I couldn't agree more with you. Those things are luxury items. Healthcare isn't. Healthcare isn't something you can do without, healthcare is something you *need*.

So why do you still pay to maintain the countless roads you'll never use? Why pay tax to maintain the fire brigade, while your house will probably never burn down?

Why pay tax at all?

Whenever this comes up, all that anyone ever considers are talking points. Why not solutions?That would be horrible. Forcing insurers to cover preexisting conditions without requiring people to carry coverage would be a disaster to the industry. Why then would anyone carry coverage? Insurers make money from HEALTHY people.

In my opinion, there's no reason we can't keep our current, effective system (save for the financing) while addressing the potential disasterous financial pitfalls that could occur in emergencies. Why not simply have the feds cover any annual expenditures over a certain amount? Make it high enough so that people don't clog the system with colds while low enough to allow production citizens a safety net in case of emergency.

Well I like that idea Mike!

Amen, trooper.

Just before she passed, I found two statements from the hospital that was treating my mom for leukemia: One week's stay, with treatment: $139,000. The next week's stay: $148,000. That was only two weeks across her sixth month illness. Other statements, including the initial treatment period when she was first diagnosed, were comparable.

Good thing our health care system as it exists today isn't broken. [/sarcasm]

The fundamental flaw with ANY health care plan legislation is that it's trying to fix a currently unrecoverable system. Legislation can't fix a system that is rife with exploitation, experimentation, and frivolous or spiteful lawsuits.

Legal scholars are already picking apart the judge's ruling:

I think that's a very valid point that's being raised.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...are-ruling.php